Posted by: Jon Fine on December 1, 2005

Nerve.com, self-proclaimed purveyors of smart-person porn, had a party last night at its offices in Manhattan. Said offices are on the ninth floor in a tall and narrow building downtown. You entered through a cramped elevator and when the doors opened you were greeted with a bustling open space, bathed in blue light, and you heard the jazz band playing. There were excellent views of Soho and downtown New York. Milling about were writers for sundry print publications—Details, the New York Daily News, etc.—likely wishing like hell they worked for an Internet company, since companies like Nerve are clearly the wave of the future and soon to eat print. Also, their offices are much cooler.

Sound familiar yet?

If you looked more closely, though, it was clear this was 2005 and not 1999. The jazz band was a mere two-piece. The booze bar was dominated by vodkas touting “extreme” flavors, like cherry, and not Grey Goose. (Grey Goose, another surviving artifact of the boom years: A brand succeeding more or less entirely via the simple strategy of making itself more expensive than the competition.) The food was cheese and crudités, serviceable but unfancy. Mercifully, and in what I am told marked a significant shift from last decade’s Nerve.com events, there was no nudity.

It was a fine party, but this being 2005, we were home by 10.

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